Title:
NATIONAL INTEGRATION OR SCHOOL SEGREGATION? IMPACTS OF ETHNOREGIONAL MECHANISMS OF PATRONAGE ON UNIVERSAL PRIMARY EDUCATION IN UGANDA

Authors:
Martin Söderberg, Vanja Berggren and Edward Kumakech

Abstract:
Uganda is an exceptionally diverse, postconflict, sub-Saharan African country with a large share of its population being school-aged children. The launch of universal primary education by the incumbent President Yoweri Museveni was essentially carried out under the banner of national integration and reconciliation. However, contrary to the pronounced ambition, the reform may neither have led to increased equity within the primary education domain, nor to unification among pupils and communities. The article highlights and scrutinizes the underlying factors that in practice have turned the implementation of universal primary education into a double-edged sword. The particular mode of decentralization and districtization in Uganda has entailed a tremendous variability in primary school performances and learning outcomes along economic, social, and geographical lines. At the same time, primary education has become a key integral of the ruling party’s patronage machinery, as well as a bargaining chip in relations between national and subnational elites. Secondary sources and data from, for instance, Uweso Uganda and Uganda National Examinations Board, are explored in accordance with a comprehensive framework of political analysis.

Keywords:
Uganda, primary education, patronage, decentralization, districtization, Museveni

DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37500/IJESSR.2024.7515

Date of Publication: 17-10-2024